| Abstract |
The Japanese scholar Suzuki Torao described Shen De-qian as a poet of ‘the moderate ‘Gediao’ （style） school’. Throughout the ages, many brilliant analyses of Shen De-qian’s “Gediao doctrine” have been made by scholars. This article takes as a starting point Shen De-qian’s stance on teaching poetry as a means to observe how his theories affected the development and opinions of the “Gediao doctrine” from the aspect of writing poems. The ‘Gediao doctrine’ hoped that poetry scholars could begin by learning to differentiate qualities of good and bad poetry; learn to imitate the essence and style of good poetry; from this, proceed to develop their individual skill; and finally break through the set patterns to form a mature style of their own. Most poets, however, only reached the ’imitation’ stage, so the “Gediao doctrine” was mocked for producing parrot-like poets who could only create poor imitations of great works. In spite of this, the “Gediao doctrine” still offered a mechanism for poets to free themselves from traditional ways of thinking, and many of its theories were incisive and unique, and represent a turning point in traditional poetry. |
